Vercors, 89, Author Who Wrote Of Nazi-Occupied France, Is Dead

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Jean Bruller, who wrote under the name Vercors and whose clandestine wartime novella, "The Silence of the Sea," moved the French nation and those who shared with France the agony of the German occupation in World War II, died on Monday at his home in Paris, his family announced yesterday. He was 89 years old.

The cause of death was not given.

"The Silence of the Sea" was the story of a German who loved France and who tried for months to convince his French friends of Hitler's good intentions. He realized too late that he had been deceived by the Nazis. The novel was widely hailed as a powerful indictment of what the Nazis truly stood for in their occupation of France.

It was published in France in early 1942 by Les Editions de Minuit, which Vercors had founded with Pierre de Lescure and which functioned throughout the war, much to the annoyance of German occupation authorities. The book was published in the United States in 1943, and by 1948 "The Silence of the Sea" had sold more than a million copies in 17 languages. Writing While Recuperating

Vercors took his pen name from a mountain region at the foot of the French Alps. He had been demobilized from the French Army shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After the war began, he was drafted and was wounded. Recuperating from his wound, he wrote two pages of his novel every night, he later said, to keep his brain working. Vercors was also one of the names he used in the French Resistance.

During the war, Vercors worked in the Resistance, passing messages for the French branch of British Intelligence.

Before he wrote "The Silence of the Sea," Vercors was a little-known artist and engraver. Under his real name, he wrote six works of satire from 1925 to 1939. These included "A Slice-Up Man," "Hell" and "Reassuring Images of War." Sold Publishing House

After the war, Vercors sold his publishing house, but continued to write essays and fiction. Among the works that attracted attention in the United States were "Three Short Novels" (1947), "You Shall Know Them" (1953), "The Insurgents" (1956), "Paths of Love" (1961), "Sylva" (1962), "Quota" (1966) and "The Raft of the Medusa," (1971).

Among the best received was "Sylva," which Germaine Bree, writing in The New York Times Book Review, called "a delightful novel." In Paris, Le Monde praised the novel and said that "as soon as one accepts the fiction in this philosophical tale, one is carried along by its charm." The novel, like others he wrote, was translated into English by his wife, Ruth Barisse.

His other works included "Denatured Animals" and "Tender Shipwreck."

Vercors was by no means limited to fiction and did not hesitate to speak out against injustice wherever he saw it. In 1957, he returned his Legion of Honor medal to the French Government in protest against what he called "the tortures in Algeria," a reference to the conduct of French troops there.

In January 1973, as the Vietnam War dragged on and President Richard M. Nixon seemed unable to extricate the Americans from a conflict that had become globally unpopular, Vercors wrote an essay for the French daily Le Monde, which was reprinted in The New York Times, that asked: "Where is the difference? Between the devastation of Guernica by the planes of Hitler and the devastation of Hanoi by those of Mr. Nixon, where is the difference?" Vercors referred to a "Nero-like shadow" of Mr. Nixon, which, he said, would "hover over all of us who will have done nothing to have stopped him."

Vercors was born Feb. 26, 1902, in Paris. He studied at the Ecole Alsacienne and received a diploma as an electrical engineer.

A version of this obituary appears in print on June 13, 1991, on Page D00024 of the National edition with the headline: Vercors, 89, Author Who Wrote Of Nazi-Occupied France, Is Dead. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe